I am kind of concerned about proving our ability to extrapolate with past evidence. This concern came from a discussion I was having with someone about evolution. I claimed that the large body of evidence allows us to determine the course that evolution took in the past. They returned with, “You weren’t there, and there was no direct observation.” It is true that I was not there to directly observe it, and showing someone that evidence being used as observation is valid, seems difficult. How do you deal with someone arguing that things could have been different a long time ago? This can apply with radioactive dating or physics in general.

Thank you for your reply,

Dex Wood

This is a classic strategy of denial, used most prominently in evolution denial (i.e. creationism/intelligent design). It is simply an attempt to deny one form of legitimate scientific evidence and reasoning.

First, I want to point out that “extrapolation” is not the best word to use for what Dex is asking. Extrapolation specifically means to find a pattern within existing data and then to project that pattern beyond the data. The specific example he gives, figuring out the path of prior evolution, is mainly interpolating – filling in data between existing data points. The fossil evidence represents snap-shots of the evolutionary past and we infer what happened between those snap-shots.

…Based at the University of Exeter in England, [Dr. Ernst] leads a research group that has spent 15 years studying alternative remedies, trying to separate snake oil from science. Mr. Singh, his co-author, is a science journalist whose books include “Fermat’s Enigma” and “Big Bang.” Together they conclude, after cataloging the evidence, that most of the popular forms of alternative medicine are “a throwback to the dark ages.” Too many alternative practitioners, they say, are “uninterested in determining the safety and efficacy of their interventions.”

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